


The Place You Need to Reach

by frapandfurious



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Fanfiction, Light Angst, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 00:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10320878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frapandfurious/pseuds/frapandfurious
Summary: He says it all so matter-of-factly, like laying out a strategy, but there’s tenderness in his gaze. Yet what he’s saying makes no sense to Kylo. Hux just…walked away? Killed Snoke and then disappeared to some backwater planet, for what? For him? There has to be more to it than that, there must be something he’s expecting Kylo to do, some missing piece.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eastmava](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eastmava/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Don't You Ever Tame Your Demons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10290932) by [Eastmava](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eastmava/pseuds/Eastmava). 



> This was inspired by the lovely, emotional [Don't You Ever Tame Your Demons](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10290932?view_adult=true) by Eastmava/ [cut-off-the-grain](http://cut-off-the-grain.tumblr.com/)!! <3 It's something of a divergence/alternate ending, and works best having read her story but can stand alone. :)

When Kylo first wakes he feels heavy, his mind and vision still foggy with sleep. All he can register is that he is somewhere …brown. And deep red. Warm. He slips away again.

Each time he wakes he takes inventory of what he can through the haze. Sometimes it’s dark except for a blueish glow in his peripheral. Sometimes gold streaks across the red and brown. There is softness beneath and on top of him, surrounding him. A musty but not unpleasant smell, of cotton and wood and fresh air.

Sometimes he swears he can feel other things. Brushes against his face or hair, something soft clasped in his hand. A calm voice speaking. A steady presence spread out beside him, so close he can feel warm breath against his cheek.

When the haze starts to lift a little he likens the groggy feeling in his mind and body to waking in the medbay after the bacta tank, but with one thing notably absent: pain. He isn’t in any pain, save a little lingering soreness in his face and side.

Something else is absent, too. A whisper at the back of his mind, a pressure in his head like a tightened collar that doubled as a noose, now gone and he can breathe again.

He doesn’t know how long he drifts in and out of consciousness. He doesn’t know where he is or why, doesn’t know anything. For a while the nothingness is comforting.

Like everything else, it can’t last forever.

One day he wakes with a jolt, suddenly clearheaded, pulse racing. He takes in a strange roof above his head and a strange bed beneath his back and the emptiness of the place he occupies. Whatever presence had kept him company in those bleary, confused hours, it isn’t here.

Something is wrong. It has to be. Where is his lightsaber? Surely something will attack at any moment. Is this a test? Part of his training? What is he supposed to do, what does Snoke want him to– 

He’s hit by a memory like a violent shove: blaster fire, Hux speaking, Snoke’s life force stuttering and then disappearing entirely.

That’s right. Snoke is dead.

That explains the loss of the voice in his head and its accompanying pressure, which he had never even noticed, but now that it’s gone his mind feels strangely weightless. Not good or bad. Just lighter.

He wonders if he should feel something. Snoke had lied to him, manipulated him, taken everything from him, but he had been the only consistent presence throughout most of Kylo’s life and for a moment he wobbles with the loss of the crutch. Then he is caught and supported by something else, something stronger than the hold Snoke had on him.

Hux.

Snoke is dead because Hux killed him. To free Kylo, to free them both.

He remembers more, then. Dropping his lightsaber at Hux’s unspoken command, turning away into Hux’s arms, letting Hux finish it for him.

Never again. You’ll never have to hurt someone again.

Kylo breathes deeply, in and out, trying to tamp down the fight or flight response but it goes against everything he knows. He tries to distract himself by taking in the details of the room.

The brown and red makes sense now: the room is wood from floor to ceiling. He’s in a large bed with thick blankets in varying shades of brown, black and tan. To his right is a window with dark red curtains, and the same curtains hang in the entrance in place of a door. The only other furniture in the room is a small dresser opposite the bed and a nightstand to his left.

Then he takes inventory of himself. He doesn’t feel any pain, so he sits up cautiously, pushing down the covers that had been tucked around him. He’s still wearing a black long-sleeved undershirt and tights that he’d had under his robes, but the socks on his feet he doesn’t recognize. He shivers and pulls the blankets up again. On second thought, he pulls one loose and wraps it around his shoulders, then steps out of bed.

From somewhere beyond the room there’s a click and a creak and Kylo’s heartbeat spikes again. He pulls the blanket tight around himself with one hand and holds the other up and ready to use the Force if necessary. He backs against the nightstand and waits.

The curtain is pushed aside and Hux walks in. He looks up at him, surprised, and the green eyes that meet his are the most welcome sight in the galaxy. Kylo lowers his hand but he’s still shaking, still breathing a little too heavily.

“You’re up.” He steps closer. “How are you feeling? I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke, I needed to get us food.”

There’s something off about Hux. On the outside he looks…as different from the tightly laced General of the First Order as this place looks from their quarters on the Finalizer. His hair is loose and soft without gel and he’s wearing a simple, faded, slightly-too-large gray tunic and black pants and shoes. But it’s more than that, some little static in his Force presence that Kylo can’t place, but he’s too high-strung, too disoriented by this sudden relocation to make sense of it.

He belatedly realizes that Hux asked him a question and is waiting for an answer. He doesn’t have one.

Undeterred, Hux steps up to him and puts a hand on his cheek.

“You’re freezing,” he mumbles. “Come on, back into bed.”

“Where are we?” Kylo’s voice is raspy from disuse. He wonders again how long he was out.

“I’ll explain everything once you’re lying down. Or would you like to eat first?”

Kylo doesn’t think he could eat if he tried, not with the anxiousness churning in his stomach, so he lets Hux guide him to the bed where he curls up under the covers. To his surprise, Hux slips off his shoes and joins him. He begins stroking through Kylo’s hair with one hand and it grounds him so he can focus on what Hux is saying.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“…you killed Snoke,” Kylo decides. There’s more, after that, he thinks Hux might have carried him, might have said something, but he isn’t sure enough of it to declare it a memory.

“Yes. I did. Then I carried you back to the ship, and brought you here. That was nearly two days ago. This planet is under First Order command, we’re safe here. It’s…a little less civilized than I’m used to…” his fingers pick at the edge of the old quilt they’re under before continuing. “…but it’s quiet and the native species minds their own business. This is a safehouse we used when claiming it. It might not look like much, but beneath us is a communications station and a small arsenal.” Hux stops abruptly. He shakes his head then speaks again. “That’s not the point. None of this has anything to do with the Order. This is for you, Kylo. So much happened so quickly. You barely had time to heal before we were at Snoke’s doorstep, and then…well. The point is, I wanted to let you rest. You needed it. We can stay here while we figure out what’s next.”

He says it all so matter-of-factly, like laying out a strategy, but there’s tenderness in his gaze. Yet what he’s saying makes no sense to Kylo. Hux just…walked away? Killed Snoke and then disappeared to some backwater planet, for what? For him? There has to be more to it than that, there must be something he’s expecting Kylo to do, some missing piece.

“If you’re worried about what’s going to happen while I’m here, don’t,” Hux says as if reading Kylo’s mind. “I did think this through, you know. From the moment I got you off of Starkiller. There are officers in place running things for the time being and I’ve been communicating orders to them as needed. Phasma is still commanding the troopers. No one outside of the top ranks even knows Snoke is dead yet. The Order is a well-oiled machine and it will continue to function.”

Then he smirks a little. “And no officer would dare step in to take my place. After what I did, they all fear me, and they know you’re with me, so of course they-“ 

At the reminder that, free of Snoke’s reins or not, he is still a monster, hated and feared, coldness grips Kylo’s chest. He’s suddenly flooded with memories of the things he’s done, all those years spent obeying Snoke, all for the false promise that he would learn control and stop hurting others and himself. The past fifteen years of his life devoted to a lie…

With a strangled cry he curls up tighter and hides his face in his hands. He shoves his fingers into his hair, dislodging Hux’s, and pulls hard, relying automatically on what he learned long ago about embracing pain, letting it strengthen him.

“Fuck,” comes Hux’s sharp voice, and then his hands are on Kylo’s, loosening his grip and pulling them away. Hux pins Kylo’s arms down and then moves in close and holds him tightly. Kylo presses his face into Hux’s neck and sobs.

Hux’s hands move over him, rubbing soothingly up and down his back and reaching up to stroke through his hair. He speaks calmly and authoritatively, though Kylo can’t make out the words themselves as he pours years of pent up misery into Hux’s warm embrace.

Even once he’s spent and no more tears are left he stays there, trembling. Hux still hasn’t let go. If anything, his grip is tighter, fiercer.

Kylo sniffs and turns his head to attempt to wipe his face off on the pillow. Hux shifts back so that he can slide his hands up and cup Kylo’s face, wiping at the tear tracks with his thumbs.

“Better?”

Kylo isn’t sure. He feels drained, even though he just spent two days sleeping, and shaken by the turn of events, and most of all unaccustomed to having someone hold him. But this is the first time he can remember when he’s been overcome by emotions and not lashed out at someone or something.

“I think so,” he whispers. “Hux?”

“Yes?” Hux’s hands resume their place in his hair. Kylo closes his eyes.

“What do you need from me?”

He can’t bear to look at his face but he hears Hux give a long sigh that sounds almost sad.

“Just one thing, Kylo,” and Kylo flinches, braces himself to be told he has to finish off their enemies or take out any officers who might resist Hux’s rule. Gentle hands continue to stroke his hair. “I need you to make a decision. We can leave all this behind, go somewhere no one will recognize us, start over. I…always did wonder if I’d be good in an occupation outside the military. I’ve always been quite adept at designing things, perhaps…” He stops and clears his throat. “Or we can return to the Order and take it for ourselves. Shape it, and the galaxy, to match our own vision, not his.” He pauses again, and when he speaks this time his voice wavers slightly. “Of course, you can go off on your own, if you’d like. You can do whatever you want. You’re free now. I won’t bind you to me the way he did.”

“You don’t need to,” Kylo says quickly. He leans in and presses his forehead to Hux’s. He doesn’t know what he wants yet, his thoughts are still too muddled, but he knows he doesn’t want to leave Hux’s side. “I’m yours.”

Hux relaxes. He kisses Kylo and then pulls away to sit up. Without his vision filled with Hux, Kylo sees that the planet’s sun is starting to set, beams of golden light cutting through the air.

“You don’t have to decide right away,” Hux says. “We have time. I’m going to go make us something to eat.”

“You can cook?”

Hux scoffs.

“I can…figure it out, I’m sure.”

Kylo almost smiles.

*

The days pass calmly and quietly, something Kylo not used to in the slightest. It takes the entire day following Hux’s explanation for him to stop waiting for an attack or to wake up onboard the Finalizer and find this was all a test and he failed.

By the next day, though, he almost feels okay. After spending the better part of four days sleeping, and none of it training, he feels physically better than he has since…ever, maybe. Without the regular demands from Snoke and the Order, without the constant pressure of Snoke’s presence in his head, he feels mentally clearer, too. The downside to this is more opportunity to think about things he’d rather not. For that, there’s Hux.

Hux seems incapable of long periods of inactivity, and so he divides his time between doting on Kylo and teaching himself how to cook. He occasionally sneaks down into the underground command center to check up on how the Order is running without them, but he’s never down there long.

The best part is, with no one to stop them, they can be together. Just like Hux said. Hours spent side by side in bed exploring each other, touching and kissing and holding. Kylo finally gets to bury his fingers into the soft fiery hair he’s long admired from afar. Hux seems to enjoy running his clever fingers over Kylo’s face and chest and arms, everywhere, and it feels so amazing to be touched in that way that Kylo lets him do it for as long as he likes. In the morning they sit close while drinking their caf; at night they fall asleep wrapped around each other. It feels like a dream.

Kylo keeps waiting for Hux to ask something of him, or expect an answer, or grow impatient with him. He doesn’t. Hux said he was free, that he won’t leash him or use him. So far Hux has kept every promise he’s made, which is more than anyone before had done, and so Kylo believes him.

One thing still bothers him, though. It’s that uneasiness about Hux, the static around him, something off that Kylo can’t quite place. At first he feared it was directed at him: regret or resentment.

After nearly a week together, he’s at ease enough to finally identify it. One day he sees Hux sitting by the window, staring out blankly, and a sweep of his mind is all it takes.

It’s fear, but not of Kylo, and not that same kind of fear. It’s the kind of fear that comes with boarding a ship for the first time and taking off into the unknown vastness of space. Of leaving home.

Kylo never considered the Order or the Finalizer home, stopped thinking of anywhere as home long ago. He never considered that, for Hux, that life was all he’d ever known. And now he’s willing to throw it all away. For Kylo.

That, more than anything, convinces Kylo that Hux’s motives are genuine. That little buzz of uncertainty, shoved down by his determination to keep Kylo safe.

He walks over cautiously and settles beside Hux on the window seat. Hux feels around for his hand and when he finds it he holds on tight, weaving their fingers together. Outside the window the galaxy goes about its business as usual. Soon they will have to rejoin it, one way or another. But for now they are each the other’s brightest star, each the center of the other’s solar system, and everything else can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on [tumblr!](http://obsessions-and-dreams.tumblr.com/)


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